Austin Real Estate Market Update – Jan 2008

The real estate market in Austin was very slow for January 2008. Number of homes sold was down 15% over the same month last year, yet we continue to see sold price appreciation for the homes that do sell. I’ve added a new metric to my chart below. I’ve decided to start tracking “Not Solds”. This is an important factor to be aware of.

Sometimes, when looking only at the average and median sold prices, and watching those climb, we forget that there is also a high number of failed sales efforts that never make it into the stats. Look at December 2007 in the chart below for example and note that we had 1533 homes marked as “Sold” in the Austin MLS, but we also had 1737 homes that fell out of the MLS as Expired or Withdrawn.

So, when pricing homes, we look at the sold comps but we also have to look at the number of competing homes and adjust the list price downwadr if we are facing a lot of competing homes. This goes back to something I’ve discussed before, which is the Two Market theory. You want to make sure your home is “in” the market, not just “on” the market.

On to the stats for January 2008.

• Average sold prices in Austin were up 6.61% over the same month last year.
• Median sold price was up 7.95% over the same month last year.
• Avg sold price per square foot is up 4% over Jan 2006
• Avg days on market is down 1 day from 70 in Jan 2007 to 69 Jan 2008
• Median days on market is up 2 days from 49 days in Jan 2007 to 51 days Jan 2008.
• Number of “Not Sold” (exp or withdrawn) is up 40% over the same month last year.

Austin Sales Stats January 2008
Previous Month and Year Comparison
All MLS Areas - Houses Only

Dec 2007

Jan 2008

Jan2007

Yr % Change

# Sold

1533

1228

1443

-14.90%

Avg List Price

$267,290

$260,784

$252,370

3.33%

Median List Price

$199,900

$196,008

$179,900

8.95%

Avg Sold Price

$256,726

$260,742

$244,579

6.61%

Med Sold Price

$194,000

$190,000

$176,000

7.95%

Avg Size SQFT

2168

2150

2097

2.53%

Median SQFT

1983

1954

1879

3.99%

Avg $ per SQFT

$118

$121

$117

3.98%

Avg Days on Mkt

69

69

70

-1.43%

Median Days on Mkt

51

51

49

4.08%

# Expired

1117

578

396

45.96%

# Withdrawn

620

626

464

34.91%

Total NOT Sold

1737

1204

860

40.00%

Not Sold %

53%

50%

37%

32.57%

I don’t have YTD stats since obviously Jan is the only month so far. Anecdotally, we’ve seen a very strong pick-up in activity for February and have received offers for several of our listings that were previously just riding out the winter.
Also, after attending the Keller Williams “Family Reunion” Convention in Atlanta a couple of weeks ago, and talking to agents from markets all across the country that are suffering, we have it pretty darn good here in Austin. We have nothing to complain about, though we do have a few challenges as evidenced by the number of homes that don’t sell.

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arz
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9 years ago

we were looking into refinancing last month, and when it hit 5.60% on 30 year fixed we almost pushed the button. But we wanted to see it hit closer to 5%. And yet, now the rate climbed to about 6.30% now. Strange trend since the Fed is almost but certain to cut rate again. This shows how bad this overall landing business and banking business in general is. Human greed is good when business is doing well, and so bad when things sour.

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Arz, future Fed cuts are more likely to further weaken the dollar and help drive inflation — inflation fears are pushing the 10 yr bond rate up, which is the best indicator for where mortgae rates are moving. Nostalgia note: As a very young man, my first home in Austin in 1981 had a 30 yr fixed at 13.75% — “stagflation” was the culprit. It could be making a comeback…now THAT would be ugly!

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Hey Steve! I created some charts you may be interested in as well. The problem for some buyers is that they waited to buy in some of the better areas of South and North Austin, so may now compete. Oppositely, the folks who listened to non-investor agents went and grabbed up too much real estate in East Central (78723 and 78702) and Soco (78704). http://tinyurl.com/2owgl8

According to my charts, pices should stay under $300-350k for the fastest sales in Austin.